476 Boston Society of Natural History. 



Part III. — Note on the Meteoric Theory of the Sun's Heat. 

 In this short note Sir W. Thomson gives his reason for concluding 

 that meteoric supply for sun heat has not, within historical periods, 

 come from distant space outside the earth's orbit. He regards it as 

 highly improbable that the heat of the sun depends at all for its 

 continuation upon a perpetual meteoric supply. In the present state 

 of science, what appears to him most probable are Helmholt's views 

 — that the sun originally acquired his heat in being buQt up out of 

 smaller masses falling together and generating heat by their col- 

 lision, but that at present he is simply an incandescent mass cooling. 



I^E:poI^TS j^^rx) :fi^ooeeidi:n"(3-s. 



Proceedings of the Warwickshire Naturalists' and Arch^- 

 OLOGiSTs' FiELD-oLUB, 1868.— At the Annual Winter Meeting, held 

 on the 20th February, 1868, the Eev. P. B. Brodie, M.A., F.G.S., 

 Vice-President and Hon. Sec. of the Club, read a paper entitled " A 

 Sketch of the Lias generally in England." Especial reference was 

 made to the lower division in the counties of Warwick, Worcester, 

 and Grloucester, and a particular account was given of the fossils. 

 Mr. Brodie remarked upon the great uniformity of lithological 

 character of the Lias taken as a whole; even certain Zones may 

 sometimes be as readily recognised by this feature as by their 

 zoological contents. The Insect-limestones, which occur at the base 

 of the Lower Lias, immediately overlying the White Lias (Eheetic), 

 and which consist of from two or three to five or six beds of lime- 

 stone, have been identified by Mr. Brodie in Somersetshire, 

 Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and Leicestershire, where they pre- 

 sent the same mineralogical character, and contain similar fossils. 

 The remains of insects and also of plants are of considerable 

 interest, because they afford the only evidence of terrestrial life in 

 the Lias. The former occur in the Upper Lias, and in the " Insect 

 limestones " of the Lower Lias. Well preserved remains have been 

 met with in the Cotham marble at Aust Cliff, but are not known 

 elsewhere on this horizon. Mr. Brodie speaks of this marble as the 

 probable equivalent of the White Lias in Somersetshire ; it un- 

 doubtedly belongs to the series, but should rather be called the 

 representative. It occurs at the base of the White Lias in the 

 Eailway cuttings at Saltford, near Bath. The Summer Meeting of 

 the Club was held at Oxford, in June, 1868. Numerous sections in 

 the neighbourhood were inspected under the guidance of Professor 

 Phillips and Mr. Parker. An interesting account is given of the 

 visit, which lasted several days. 



Boston Society op Natural History, June 18th, 1869. — Prof. 

 Cope exhibited the almost perfect cranium of a Mosasauroid reptile, 

 the Clidastes propython. He explained various peculiarities of its 

 structure, as the moveable articulation of certain of the mandibular 

 pieces on each other, the suspension of the os-quadratum at the 

 extremity of a cylinder composed of the opisthotic, &c., and other 

 peculiarities. He also explained, from specimens, the characters of a 



